Napalm Death - Fear, Emptiness, Despair (1994)

PRODUCTION INFORMATION:

 Recorded at Parr St. Studios, Liverpool Oct./Nov. '93
And Jacob Studios, Surrey Nov./Dec. '93
Produced by Pete Coleman and Napalm Death
Engineered by Pete Coleman
Remixed at Battery Studios Jan./Feb. '94 by Colin "Mr.Soft" Richardson		 Barney Greenway - Vocal
Shane Embury - Bass and Random Guitar Noise
Jesse Pintado - Guitar
Mitch Harris - Guitar
Danny Herrera - Drums

CRITICISM

Quite an album, " Fear, Emptiness, Despair" presents us withthe most oppressive sound Napalm Death has ever produced. This album isstrong and evil, like the sound f evil machinery at work. A far cry fromit's predecessor "Utopia Banished". "Fear..." has amore rithimic sound, at the time it reminded me a lot of industrial metal,the difference is that the riffs played here are made by regular instruments,guitars, bass and drums, nothing electronic at all. The sound is huge andoppressive, which is great, this has a very technical feel to it, Dannygrinds to perfection, longs gone are the (also great) messy blast beats,what we have here are mechanical and precise blasts. A very oppressive albumin all sense, bleak and sad lyric wise, brutal and really heavy sound wise.It's the soundtrack for a dark future. It features classics such as "Twistthe Knife" and the now classic "Plague Rages". It's the closestNapalm Death ever got to releasing a "depressive" album, and itmarked a big change in their sound, when the band became more experimentaland added new elements to the brutality of their original concept.

INFORMATION ON THE RELEASE:

Again, according to Earache, the album was released on the followingformats: LP/MC/CD/Ltd CD (1994). The limited edition was an european onlyrelease with the bonus tracks Living in Denial and Truth Drug. Also, thereis a Japanese edition of FED with the tracks from the "Nazi Punks FuckOff" ep. The tracks are: Nazi Punks Fuck Off, Aryanisms, Nazi PunksFuck Off (live), Contemptuous (xtreem mix). "Contemptuous" wasremixed by Larceny. Who also remixed Brutal Truth. Earache re-released FEDas part of the "Welcome home campaing".

Just in case you don't already know...THE WELCOME HOME CAMPAINGWAS:

Well, what was the "Welcome home campaing"?. Ok, in the earlynineties, we had a black plague called GRUNGE right? So, some so-called"extreme" music was selling a lot now, hardcorish/Heavy bandslike Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc were getting really big. Some big recordlabels like Columbia and Sony Music decided to take a chance at some grindingstuff and made a deal with Earache, therefore releasing the new recordsof the major Earache bands (Carcass, Fudge Tunnel, Napalm Death, Godflesh,etc). The problem is that this still is xtreem underground grind music,and no teenage brain-dead Nirvana fan has got "what it takes"to listen to brutal stuff like Napalm Death. So the deal was a flop, andthe bands obviously didn't sell what Columbia/Sony expected them to sell.Soon, everyone got back at Earache (Carcass even had recorded an album (Swansong)and they couldn't release it because, between one thing and another, theyhad no label!) and Earache decided to re-release the Columbia albums withbouns tracks+new artwork, so dorks like me, who bought all the albums whenthey were originally released, would be fucked!!! :-)) Anyway, FED was re-releasedwith two bonus tracks: Living in denial and Truth Drug (also available onthe MOSH 100 Rareache CD and on the Hung 7" respectively).

SONGLIST FOR "FEAR, EMPTINESS, DESPAIR":


 - Twist The Knife (Slowly)*

- Hung

- Remain Nameless

- Plague Rages

- More than Meets the eye

- Primed Time

- State of Mind

- Armageddon x7

- Retching on the dirt

- Fasting on deception

- Throwaway

Bonus tracks on some newer editions:

 - Living in Denial

- Truth Drug

Bonus tracks on Japanese edition:

- Nazi Punks Fuck Off

- Aryanisms

- Nazi Punks Fuck Off (live)

- Contemptuous (xtreem mix)